Delray Beach title trail runs cold in 1931

Search for property owner ties up development

DELRAY BEACH — City leaders are trying to sell a narrow sliver of land off West Atlantic Avenue, but they cannot for one reason: They don't know who owns it.

A major search for the heir turned up nothing. It doesn't help that only three things are known about the last proprietor: He was probably alive in 1931, he was black and his name was John Smith.

The uncertainty is disrupting efforts to turn nothing into something along Delray Beach's most important commercial strip. Several empty lots could be bundled and sold for offices or shops, but the narrow strip known only as "alley" is limiting options.

"It's basically just kind of in limbo," said Diane Colonna, executive director of Delray's Community Redevelopment Agency.

On Tuesday, the Delray Beach CRA board agreed on terms to put a pair of adjacent blocks up for bid, but a coalition of development interests have called on the board to sell all three blocks, encompassing five acres between Southwest Ninth Avenue and Southwest Sixth Avenue.

Five acres "needs to be included in this request … for a more inclusive and competitive bidding process," wrote Reginald Cox, chairman of the West Atlantic Redevelopment Coalition.

The city demurred.

"We do business very cautiously," said Vincent Nolan, CRA economic development director.

The CRA doesn't want to sell that strip of land and then find itself in court with Smith's heirs.

On May 5, 1931, Smith filed a petition claiming to be the only heir of George S. Sails, who was born in Florida in 1856, and died in Delray Beach on Oct. 23, 1930.

Sails owned the alley and the block of land around it where Shuler's Memorial Chapel now sits. Before he died, he chopped it up into parcels and left the strip down the middle, which is about 20 feet wide and measures nearly a block, city officials said.

But, defying convention, Sails never gave the "alley" to the city.

Last year Delray Beach attorneys hired investigators who specialize in genealogy searches. International Genealogical Search, or IGS, based in Vancouver, Canada, pored over census and court records hoping, in its words, "to locate John Smith, alive or deceased."

They obviously would not find him breathing. So the search was on for his grandchildren or great-grandchildren.

In his petition, Smith claimed to be the stepson, and Sails had no children, IGS found. But it tried to learn something of Sails or his wife. No obituaries turned up in the newspapers, the Palm Beach County News and the Delray Beach News. The local cemetery found nothing.

Researchers undertook similar searches for Smith and his children. You can imagine how that went. There were no fewer than 11 John Smiths and two Johnnie Smiths in and around the county back then.

Delray Beach lawyers contracted a title search company to certify the last recorded property transfer. Those results came in late Thursday. Once the city reviews it, they can go to court and petition for a "quiet title action" to take over the land.

"It doesn't mean that someone may not be able to stake a claim in some way," said Terrill Pyburn, assistant city attorney.

The whole process will probably take at least six months, she said.

Meanwhile, most of the block is an urban pasture, collecting few tax dollars. And the alley doesn't seem to be generating any; the county Property Appraiser doesn't even have a parcel number for it.

The funeral home next door leaves it alone.

"We don't know who it belongs to," a receptionist said.

As a local law firm and a cultural arts nonprofit group spar over the purchase of city-owned land, this West Atlantic Avenue property has offered hope to resolve the problem. The mayor wants to put the law office there and keep its 200 jobs in the city.

But the CRA, meanwhile, has been forced to tailor its request for bids around the alley. Nolan said three or four serious developers have inquired about all five acres.

"The more you offer in one package, the more comprehensive development you can get," he said.

For now, one of two things has to happen. Either a judge hands Delray Beach the property, or someone named Smith shows up soon.